2014-12-23: Bath Time Activities

Today's bath time activities: Dad making up a story about characters from the Monkeyball games, and watching and racing water droplets down the inside of the tub.

2014: Razzleberry from the Tropics

A song, by Nigel, inspired by the jar of Tropical Razzleberry Preserves in the refrigerator:
Razzleberry from the tropics
Razzleberry preserves
Razzleberry from the tropics
Razzleberry preserves

[...]

(Editor's note: See Nigel or Dad to hear it properly. Simplistic notation follows.
Notes:
FFFFGGFD
BbBbBbBbGBb

Beat:
....--..
....-.

)

2014-12-16: Don't Squeeze the Pigs

Nigel cares a great deal about animals and really wants them to be treated well. He generally avoids eating meat partly out of concern for animals, though it is also partly a taste preference, as he eats ham and deli meats occasionally. He wants to have a farm with cows and chickens and pigs, but does not want the pigs to be squeezed to death for their bacon, an idea which must have come from a combination of the video game Hay Day, in which pigs get squeezed in some sort of steam sauna to harvest bacon (but are uninjured in the process), and having been told that in real life, pigs are killed by what he calls the "baconating" process.

2014-12-15: Letter Intersection Points

In place of Midnight Math the past few days, Dad and Nigel have been discussing the formation of letters. Handwriting has been among the most difficult aspects of school for Nigel, and Dad wanted to help by talking through the formation of the letters. Getting the proportions right and beginning from the traditional places have been the most challenging for him. In the past, some of Mom and Dad's approaches to teaching handwriting have met with resistance and frustration from Nigel. This one seems to be going over quite well, though.

Dad has been drawing three lines across a white board: solid for the top and bottom, and dashed down the middle. He and Nigel decided to call the lines "top", "bottom" and "road". Next, Dad slowly draws a letter, saying the name of each line anytime the letter touches it. For an uppercase 'A', that sounds like, "Top, road, bottom; top, road, bottom; road," for the left vertical line, right vertical line and the horizontal connector, respectively. This has given each portion of the formation of the letter very specific targets to reach and has immediately produced correct vertical proportions for all letters yet covered (A-F). Lacking horizontal targets, Nigel's 'C's were initially very skinny, as were the horizontal components of his 'E's and 'F's. A few times through with each has helped, though having more specific targets for those lines would help even more.

After writing each, to help commit each to memory, Dad asks Nigel to close his eyes and tell how to make each letter by saying those same words out loud.

2014-12-15: Nigel Objects to Child Labor Laws

On the way to school, Nigel asked Dad about kids working at jobs. Dad told him a bit about child labor laws and happened to mention that some countries don't have laws preventing children from working. Nigel was disappointed to hear that he couldn't get a job, and said he would like to work at a hotel in a country where they allow kids to have jobs, and work at a time when Mom and Dad are coming to stay. He also said that he would really like to work at the Grand America hotel and have Mom and Dad come to live there while he was working.

Also from this morning's conversation, Nigel would like to live in a mansion.

2014-12-14: Christmas Tree Cookies

Dad has brought to the family a tradition of putting gingerbread cookies on the Christmas tree as ornaments. Mom has embraced this idea as an addition to the other decorations she likes to use. Nigel particularly enjoys this tradition as he sneaks bites from the cookies throughout the season, paying no attention to the age of the cookies. By this point, the only cookies remaining are those hung too high for him to reach, and on the occasion a chair or ladder happens to be near the tree, even those are not safe.

2014-12-13: Lucia 2014

The family celebrated Lucia again this year, making Luciakatten (saffron bread shaped like curled cat's tails, with raisins) under Mom's direction. This year, Nigel added a special creation: a Lucia snail. When the cats were finished baking, they ate them with dinner, by candlelight. Mom made fried rice and Dad provided some sparkling black currant juice to drink. Afterward, Nigel said, "Outstanding dinner! Outstanding juice, Dad!"

2014-12-08: Snowman Hair

Nigel has been doing a lot of art projects this year under the direction of his new teacher, Miss Milly (whom we all adore). Today's was a snowman, made from something like thickened shaving cream. He gave it hair "like Dad's". (Dad has been letting his hair grow out longer lately, and allowing its curls to run wild. The snowman's hair really was similar.)

2014-12-07: Go Fish War

Nigel invented a new game for Midnight Math tonight: Go Fish War. He really likes playing War, and he and Dad have now come up with a few variations of it to keep things interesting. Sometimes they play two-card war in which the cards are added together for comparison, with the largest value winning, and other times they do two-card subtraction, in which the smallest value wins. (In subtraction-style, if Nigel is feeling disadvantaged, he will sometimes subtract the larger number from the smallest and use the negative result to ensure a victory.)

In Go Fish War, the cards are divided between the players, who then take turns asking if their opponent has any of a given number. With only two players, and all cards having been dealt, that is easy to anticipate. Upon taking the cards from the other player and making a complete set of that number, the player then lays that set down and adds up the total from the four cards. The opponent then lays down one of their card sets and adds up their total, with the larger amount taking both sets. Nigel and Dad played with sets of 2s through 9s.

Tonight, this ended up being a complete rout of Dad, taking Nigel only two rounds through Dad's hand to empty it. Then, the real math work began. Nigel wanted to add up all the points he had collected. Dad had been wanting to do some work with an abacus and figured this was his excuse to do so.

He asked Nigel if he wanted to use the abacus to count up the points. Nigel said yes, and as he seemed to have an idea in his head about how to do that, Dad just let him proceed on his own. After a minute or so of flipping beads around and starting to seem frustrated, Dad asked if Nigel wanted a suggestion. Given that approval, Dad rotated the abacus around so that counting a bead involved sliding it from the bottom to the top, rather than from side to side. Next, Dad reminded Nigel to use each bead column as a 10s place value, and they reiterated what values each place would be. Then he demonstrated abacus addition starting with the 9s (adding a 10s bead and taking away a 1s bead). After demonstrating that technique, Nigel added the four 9s, and they counted up how many points he had so far. They repeated this with 8s and 7s, and encountered the situation in which there are not enough 1s beads to continue taking away. At this point, Dad demonstrated that there would be enough 1s beads to add the number of 1s beads back in, then let Nigel continue.

At 6s, Dad let Nigel figure out how to add 6 by himself, and Nigel performed the remaining tasks by himself, with the exception of Dad clarifying what to do when Nigel reached ten 10s. 176 was his final answer.

2014-12-04: 1st New Tooth

Nigel has his first secondary tooth coming in! On the bottom row, it is the first tooth left of center. It is coming in behind his primary tooth, and he was wondering what it was in the car on the way to school. He asked Dad if it could be a new tooth, and when they arrived, sure enough, there it was, peeking right out through his gum. He was excited to see it in the mirror that night.

Due to the way it is growing in, Mom is saying Nigel is a shark, as he will have a second row of teeth. Dad and Nigel have their regular dentist appointments scheduled for the end of January and will have the dentist look at the tooth then.

2014-12-03: McRib Cafe

On the way home from dinner tonight, feeling a bit lippy, Nigel said he wanted to start a cafe with Dad. He proposed letting people choose their own main courses, but him choosing their side dishes for them. For Mom, who said she would choose either prime rib or linguini with shrimp for her main course, he said he would serve a McRib as her side dish. (See: http://www.mansfieldpark.org/2014/11/2014-11-27-thanksgiving-also-mcrib.html for background on the McRib as a family joke. Nigel has spent considerable time trying to get Mom to eat one.)

When Mom complained about a McRib not sounding like a side dish, Nigel said, "I think anything can be a side dish. Maybe a piece of wood would serve you right, or possibly a street light." He also insisted people would need to eat all of their side dish before they would get their main course.

2014-12-02: Color Wheel and Abacus

Dad got a color wheel recently, and he and Nigel have been learning about colors the past two nights. They have discussed primary, secondary and tertiary colors, and how to mix colors to create the secondary and tertiary colors.

Tonight, for Midnight Math, Nigel picked to do a Bedtime Math problem, and when he was stymied by adding larger quantities together, he had the idea to get out the abacus to help. Nigel spent a few minutes fiddling around with the abacus, having had little or no instruction on how to use it, mainly trying to use all the rows of beads as having a place value of one and just continuing to count them. A good idea, but he got tripped up performing all the manipulations and started over a couple of times. Seeming to be a bit frustrated, he then decided he would just do the addition in his head instead, one column at a time, and came to the correct answer that way.

Afterward, Dad asked if he wanted to see how to sue an abacus to solve a problem like this. Nigel did, and they turned the abacus sideways and Dad demonstrated how each column of beads could be used to represent a base-10 place value. They counted out what place value each column would represent, discovering that this abacus had a billions column! Then Dad walked through two addition problems using the abacus, one with and the other without carrying. Nigel caught on quickly.